Holy Women Hermits

“The fourth-century persecution of Athanasius and the Christians at Alexandria dramatically underlines the phenomenon of “holy virgins” or “holy women.” Savagely abused during the vicious Arian conflicts, these dedicated women were playing an increasingly significant role in the spiritual life of the church. Christian care for and recognition of women goes back to apostolic times, and reverence for consecrated virginity emerged early. By the fifth century, as barbarian invasions disrupted the west and worldliness corrupted the faith in the east, this idea captivated more and more young women–just as thousands of men were joining monasteries. Tertullian, in the second century, praised female virginity as an imitation of Christ, notes Jesuit historian James A. Mohler (“The Heresy of Monasticism”, New York, 1971), and virgins took a prominent part in liturgical processions. In the third century, Cyprian of Carthage placed them in honor behind only the martyrs. Indeed, notes British historian Joan M. Petersen in “Handmaids of the Lord” (Kalamazoo, 1996), female virginity seemed to acquire such exaggerated esteem as to admit scarcely any justification for marriage. “I praise marriage, I praise wedlock,” wrote Jerome in the fourth century, in a famously controversial letter to his disciple, the virgin Julia Eustochium, “but only because they produce virgins.”…

Female asceticism, whether solitary or monastic, virginal or simply celibate, nonetheless quickly spread through the Middle East, Europe, and eventually the world. The most powerful inspiration behind it, scholar Petersen suggests, was surely the same as that of male ascetics. Christ’s call is always for total commitment. With Christianity an accepted state religion, the especially devout may have seen the ordinary, everyday church as requiring of them too little sacrifice. Conscious of the standard set by the martyrs only a generation or so earlier, they yearned for a similarly heroic expression of their devotion to Jesus Christ.

At first, many such women probably lived an ascetic life at home, dressing simply, eating frugally, following a demanding prayer rule, and joining with like-minded friends within church congregations. But some came to believe, writes the Benedictine nun Laura Swan in “The Forgotten Desert Mothers” (New York, 2001), that achievement of inner peace was impossible amidst the pressures and crowding of city life. They felt they must abandon whatever else possessed their mind and heart, and seek God in the immense solitude of the desert.
Notable among these female solitaries is Mary of Egypt, subject of many popular legends and highly regarded in the Orthodox Church as an exemplar of extreme sin, followed by extreme repentance. Mary was no virgin. To the contrary, according to seventh-century sources, Mary of Egypt was a notorious prostitute in fifth-century Alexandria, but while plying her trade among pilgrims to Jerusalem, she was violently stricken with remorse on the threshold of the Holy Sepulchre. She then disappeared into the wilderness beyond the Jordan River to expiate her sins, reportedly seeing no one for the next forty-seven years. At last, a priest-monk named Zosimus, chancing to encounter the practically skeletal woman, gave her communion. She asked him to return a year later; complying, he found and buried her body.
Among female desert dwellers, there soon appeared the figure of the amma (Aramaic for mother, equivalent to abba, father): a lone-woman ascetic tutoring disciples one by one in the life of solitude with God. As with their male counterparts, however, groups of female hermits took to gathering on occasion, and desert convents began to form.

They proliferated rapidly. Palladius, a much-traveled historian of fourth-century monasticism, encountered one in the Thebaid region on the Upper Nile, where some four hundred virgins followed a rule almost identical to that of the men’s monasteries. Smaller communities were housed in caves, ruins, family tombs, or on islands. Within a half-century, convents were opening all over Roman Europe, although those in the west tended to locate near cities for protection against barbarian attack.
They generally observed a communal rule regulating daily prayer (usually at eight stated hours between dawn and bedtime), Divine Liturgy, meals, and so on. Most expected their members to memorize the Psalter and diligently study the Scriptures. Work included weaving, gardening, household chores, and care of the sick and the aged. Personal possessions were limited to a few storage jars and books, plain clothing, and a sleeping mat. Some sisters slept on the ground with only a rough coverlet of goat’s hair. Wine was taken for medicinal purposes, and only in small amounts…

Meanwhile, the exhortations of the Council of Gangra notwithstanding, exaltation of virginity and of celibacy reached fever pitch. Some women became lone ascetics on their own property, often when very young. For example, a Roman girl named Aselia moved at the age of twelve into a cell on her family’s estate, venturing out thereafter only to attend church. A devout Gallic Christian called Monegund lived as a solitary on her family’s estate at Chartres, baking bread and growing vegetables to feed the poor.

Other Christians of wealth and aristocratic lineage founded monasteries. Olympias, a prominent widow at the court of Emperor Theodosius I, sold her entire estate to provide alms for the poor and to endow several monastic communities. A well-to-do couple named Paulinus and Theraisa, after the death of their child at eight days old, renounced further sexual intercourse. They founded a double monastery for men and women at Nola, near Naples.

Sometimes older couples, agreeing to part, would join separate monasteries. Such was the decision of Athanasia of Antioch and her husband, although their story had a different and curious ending. Twelve years later, meeting again on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they were reunited. Thereafter, they shared a cave, but adopted a strict rule of silence…

Some women, possibly believing that men’s monasteries observed more stringent rules, adopted male disguise to join them. Much cherished is the story of Marina of Lebanon, a covert female monk who was accused of fathering a child, and consequently expelled.
Marina quietly kept her secret, raised the child, and then rejoined the monastery; not until her death was her gender discovered. A woman called Anastasia, a member of the emperor Justinian’s court, founded a monastery at Alexandria. However, when Justinian’s wife died and the emperor decided Anastasia must be her successor, the lady fled to the desert and lived there for twenty-eight years disguised as a male hermit.”